The Top 50 Graphic Novels in Canada, courtesy of BookManager (copyright TBM BookManager). This list is accurate for the week ending December 1. The full list is available here. The list is compiled by BookManager based on sales through over 250 independent bookstores (including at least one comics shop). Sales through the majority of comic shops and larger retailers like Chapters-Indigo and Walmart are not reflected in this list. For balance, you might want to try the Amazon.ca and Chapters-Indigo lists.

Top 50 Comics and Graphic Novels in Canada

1. (1) Senior’s Discount, Lynn Johnston (Andrews McMeel)
2. (-) Naruto Vol. 26, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
3. (6) Garfield Goes Bananas, Jim Davis (Random House)
4. (-) Naruto Vol. 27, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
5. (3) The Far Side 2008 Desk Calendar, Gary Larson (Andrews McMeel)
6. (9) Dark Tower:The Gunslinger Born, Peter David/Robin Furth
7. (2) Fruits Basket 18, Natsuki Takaya (Tokyopop)
8. (4) Naruto Vol. 24, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
9. (-) Naruto Vol. 25, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
10. (5) Naruto Vol. 22, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
11. (30) Naruto, Volume 1: Vol. 1, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
12. (8) Naruto Vol. 23, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
13. (16) Teaching Is a Learning Experience!, Lynn Johnston (Andrews McMeel)
14. (22) Bumper Book of Bunny Suicides, Andy Riley (Hodder)
15. (14) Naruto Vol. 19, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
16. (20) Naruto Vol. 20, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
17. (11) Naruto Vol. 21, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
18. (-) Dilbert: Cubes and Punishment, Scott Adams (Andrews McMeel)
19. (39) Naruto Vol. 16, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
20. (15) Herman: Living With Animals, Jim Unger (ECW Press)
21. (12) Vampire Knight Vol. 3, Matsuri Hino (VIZ)
22. (31) Naruto, Volume 2: Vol. 2, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
23. (33) Naruto Vol. 17, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
24. (19) Chibi Vampire 6, Yuna Kagesaki (Tokyopop)
25. (17) Tsubasa 15: Reservoir Chronicle, Clamp (Random House)
26. (43) Spy vs. Spy 2: The Joke and Dagger Files, Shayne & Abrams (Watson-Guptill)
27. (37) The Authoritative Calvin And Hobbes, Bill Watterson (Andrews McMeel)
28. (-) Beach Blanket Bongo, Matt Groening (Harpercollins)
29. (21) Death Note, Volume 1, Tsugumi Ohba Takeshi Obata (VIZ)
30. (28) Death Note, Volume 2, Tsugumi Ohba Takeshi Obata (VIZ)
31. (-) Alternative Zits, Jim Borgman Jerry Scott (Andrews McMeel)
32. (26) Loveless 7, Yun Kouga (Tokyopop)
33. (44) Naruto Vol 15, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
34. (24) Vampire Knight, Volume 1, Matsuri Hino (VIZ)
35. (32) Bleach, Volume 1, Tite Kubo (VIZ)
36. (-) The Best of Pokemon Adventures: Red:Red, Hidenori Kusaka Mato (VIZ)
37. (50) Buffy 1: The Long Way Home/Season Eight, Joss Whedon et al (Dark Horse)
38. (-) Naruto Vol 6, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
39. (36) Dilbert: Positive Attitude, Scott Adams (Andrews McMeel)
40. (-) Bone: One Volume Edition, Jeff Smith (Cartoon Books)
41. (-) Asterix and the Falling Sky, Albert Uderzo (Orion)
42. (47) Naruto Vol 14 , Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
43. (-) One Piece Vol. 16, Eiichiro Oda (VIZ)
44. (29) The Essential Calvin and Hobbes, Bill Watterson (Andrews McMeel)
45. (-) Foxtrot: And When She Opened the Closet …, Bill Amend (Andrews McMeel)
46. (-) Scientific Progress Goes Boink, Bill Watterson (Andrews McMeel)
47. (34) Black Cat Vol. 11, Kentaro Yabuki (VIZ)
48. (42) Death Note, Volume 3, Tsugumi Ohba Takeshi Obata (VIZ)
49. (40) Naruto Vol. 18, Masashi Kishimoto (VIZ)
50. (-) Louis Riel: A Comic-Strip Biography, Chester Brown (D+Q)

See here for last week’s list. I’ve added last week’s ranking in parentheses, with a (-) indicating an absence from the top 50 last week –although books that were not in the top 50 last week were most likely in the top 100, with the possible exception of a few newly published hits. The pattern that emerges from looking at these lists over a period of weeks is that certain books, especially manga series, continuously jostle with each other, sliding up and down the longer list on the strength of a new volume or a spate of purchases for the kiddies (it is Xmas, after all). The big news here is the publication of 3 new and eagerly-awaited Naruto volumes which have taken up quite a bit of space at the top of the list. The 2 U.S. graphic novels on the list, both crossovers from other media, Stephen King’s Dark Tower and the Buffy GN, have risen slightly in the ranks. The biggest surprise is the suden pre-Xmas surge for the perennial Canadian fave, Louis Riel.

The Top 1000 is a wondrous, scary place, where everyone from Todd Hignite to Charles Schulz to the Transformers to Jerry Siegel to Andy Runton duke it out and where one sale in one tiny bookstore can move a book from #999 to #200. This is also the place where you find books by Canadian creators and where the Canadian Top 20 comes from:

Sequential’s Canadian Top 20
from BookManager’s Top 1000

1. (1) Senior’s Discount, Lynn Johnston (Andrews McMeel)
2. (2) Teaching is a Learning Experience!, Lynn Johnston (Andrews McMeel)
3. (3) Louis Riel: A Comic-Strip Biography, Chester Brown (D+Q)
4. (-) She’s Turning into One of Them!, Lynn Johnston (Andrews McMeel)
5. (11) Never Wink at a Worried Woman, Lynn Johnston (Andrews McMeel)
6. (4) The Spirit (Hardcover), Darwyn Cooke/Jeph Loeb/J Bone (DC)
7. (5) The Plain Janes, Cecil Castellucci et al (DC/Minx)
8. (12) Suddenly Silver, Lynn Johnston (Andrews McMeel)
9. (6) Dramacon 1, Svetlana Chmakova (Tokyopop)
10. (7) Dramacon 2, Svetlana Chmakova (Tokyopop)
11. (8) White Rapids, Pascal Blanchet (D+Q)
12. (13) Remembering Farley, Lynn Johnston/Velda Johnston (Andrews McMeel)
13. (18) What Next, Aislin (MacArthur & Co.)
14. (10) Middle Age Spread, Lynn Johnston/Velda Johnston (Andrews McMeel)
15. (9) The Big 5-0, Lynn Johnston (Andrews McMeel)
16. (-) Northwest Passage: Annotated Collection, Scott Chantler (Oni)
17. (15) Essex County 2: Ghost Stories, Jeff Lemire (Top Shelf)
18. (14) Keep The Home Fries Burning, Lynn Johnston/Velda Johnston (Andrews McMeel)
19. (17) Essex County 1: Tales From the Farm, Jeff Lemire (Top Shelf)
20. (16) Graphic Witness: Four Wordless Graphic Novels, George A Walker (Firefly)

Most of those For Better or For Worse collections have been on and off the list forever. Guy Delisle’s Shenzhen: A Travelogue from China is #21 this week. Both Shenznen and Pyongyang have routinely been near the bottom of the top 20 the last few weeks. Scott Chantler’s two-fisted fur-trading epic Northwest Passage returns to the list after a short absence as well (the Chantler-illustrated Tek Jansen Adventures is #1 on the Amazon list currently). Various titles that contain work by Canuck artists (Nextwave and Y: The Last Man, for instance) are quite highly ranked in the top 1000, as are the Flight anthologies and various books published by D+Q featuring foreign creators (Moomin, Rutu Modan, Adrian Tomine, etc).